Andy Muschietti, the director of the 2013 creature feature Mama and the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s horror tome It, has signed on to direct an adaptation of the ’80s anime series Robotech for Sony.

We’ve reached the end of a very busy week. There were tons of trailers and some pretty big news stories, so this is a pretty beefy edition of the Best Stories of the Week.

Recapping the news from the past seven days, you’ll find updates on the future of Marvel Studios‘ television side and Samuel L. Jackson in the cinematic universe, some rumors about the future of Star Wars and details on the past of a certain iconic character from the saga, a first look at The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, new writers for the Transformers franchise and future universe and more.

Plus, there’s trailers for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Steven Spielberg’s Bride of Spies, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, and a double dose of Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw and Everest, and that’s not even half of the (mostly) great, new trailers we saw this week. Catch up on the Best Stories of the Week after the jump! Read More »

James Wan has been an in-demand director for the past couple years, but the billion-dollar success of Furious 7 pushed him into a new bracket as far as studios are concerned. We know that Warner Bros. wants to keep him around, and that he’s been in talks to make Aquaman. But if current reports are correct WB doesn’t quite know what it is doing with Aquaman yet, which may be part of what leads to this new deal.

Now James Wan is in early talks to direct the Robotech movie at Sony, as the studio makes a play to grab the hottest guy in town.

Update:THR confirms James Wan has now closed his deal to direct Aquaman. Original story follows.Read More »

Sony has taken over the rights for a Robotech live-action movie from Warner Bros. Variety reports that Sony “hopes to move quickly into production” with Gianni Nunnari and 300/The Immortals’Mark Canton producing and 300/GI Joe screenwriter Michael Gordon writing the script. This comes only a a month and a half after it was reported that Warner Bros would be adapting the anime to the big screen.

It was only a couple weeks ago that a trailer for fan-made Robotech movie cropped up online. At the time, we mentioned that Warner Bros. had been developing a live-action adaptation of Robotech for a while, but things had been quiet on that front for many months.

While it may seem that interest in the fan film that spurred WB back to action with an adaptation of the fan-favorite anime series, in fact the studio has been chugging along with the property for a while, and trying to hire a director since last fall. And now commercial director Nic Mathieu is now in talks to make the film. Read More »

Guillermo del Toro is doing giant robots in Pacific Rim, Michael Bay did them in Transformers, and an updated version of Voltron has been in and out of development for years. But Robotech, which was the mid-’80s US combination and localization of several Japanese TV series, has yet to inspire a live-action film. Plans were afoot at Warner Bros. for a live-action movie, but the last time we heard anything about that was several years back.

Enter director Cesar A. Turturro and writer Jorge Luis Sucksdorf, who are working on the Robotech Valkyrie Project, a fan effort to create an unlicensed Robotech feature in Argentina. The group recently released a new trailer, which is below. Read More »

Warner Bros has hired new screenwriters for their big screen live-action adaptation of Robotech. Smallville scribes Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have come on board to rewrite Lawrence Kasdan‘s previous draft. This is not good news. Gough and Millar were the team behind The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Herbie Fully Loaded, Made Men, Showtime, and the Shanghai Noon franchise (you remember, the Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson western comedy films?). To be fair, they got a story credit on Spider-Man 2...

And to think, Warner Bros gave those two guys the job of rewriting a script penned by the the screenwriting legend responsible for both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Empire Strikes Back. It’s mind-boggling. The Hollywood Reporter claims that Warner Bros made the move in hopes that it will “bring action and geek cred to the table.”

Geek cred?

The guys who made Smallville?

Really?

Robotech refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines or mecha (many of which were capable of transforming into vehicles) to fight three successive extraterrestrial invasions. At the time of its broadcast, Harmony Gold also launched Robotech through a popular line of comics to be followed by novels, role-playing games, video games, comic books, toys, and other consumer products.

According to CHUD’s sources, screenwriting legend Lawrence Kasdan is writing the big screen live-action adaptation of Robotech. For those of you who don’t know, Kasdan is the guy who wrote Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. What we do know for sure, Warner Bros and Maguire Entertainment are developing the project as a starring vehicle for Tobey Maguire. When the project was first announced back in September, Craig Zahler, a virtual unknown, was attached to pen the screenplay. Kasdan is an epic screenwriter for this epic sci-fi adaptation.

Robotech refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines or mecha (many of which were capable of transforming into vehicles) to fight three successive extraterrestrial invasions. At the time of its broadcast, Harmony Gold also launched Robotech through a popular line of comics to be followed by novels, role-playing games, video games, comic books, toys, and other consumer products.

Warner Bros has picked up the rights to bring the classic anime series Robotech to the big screen. Tobey Maguire is producing the film, with plans to star.

Robotech refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines or mecha (many of which were capable of transforming into vehicles) to fight three successive extraterrestrial invasions. At the time of its broadcast, Harmony Gold also launched Robotech through a popular line of comics to be followed by novels, role-playing games, video games, comic books, toys, and other consumer products.

I never really followed the series but I’ve heard that many people love the complex sci-fi plot. And it seems ripe for a big screen adaptation, especially coming off the huge box office of Michael Bay’s Transformers.